st athanasius academy

My name is David, a graduate of the Academy and former prisoner. In the 60s, as a committed Evangelical Protestant Christian, I took a Gospel of John Bible class as a college freshman in San Francisco. Who would know 50 years later I would be helping an Orthodox Academy build a brand new study course for prisoners on the Gospel of John. Glory be to God.

This course is written from an Orthodox perspective, with research by St. Athanasius Academy, the home of the Orthodox Study Bible: Septuagint Old and New Testament. It is an in-depth, verse by verse, study of the Gospel of John, based upon the Apostles, Holy Scripture, and renown Fathers of the early Church – a true work of joy. Please help us make this available to prisoners.

Why is this important? I learned first hand how the Lord can use the cold, harsh reality of prison to guide a 25-year Protestant pastor to the spirit of Antioch, being Chrismated in 2000. Thank God for prison, where I found the Academy and began taking their Orthodox studies, earning my own Academy diploma. Though having previously earned a bachelor's and a master's degree in religion, my diploma, from the Academy, is my most precious document. It represents my being submerged and challenged by this two-thousand year-old faith, passed down, unchanged, through the Lord's One Church and His Apostles. This truth, with His grace, transformed my life.